Day 1, Part 1
The sickbay’s door swung open. In the doorframe stood a crewmate with a jagged piece of wood impaled in his left eye socket.
His right eye wasn’t looking anywhere in particular. I assumed it was searching for me, in a room it seemingly could no longer register as a room. I think he mumbled something, but I couldn’t hear him over the roar of the waves outside, the creaking of the ship, and the thousandfold drumbeat of the rain on my window. Moments later, he collapsed on the floor, face down.
I wanted to call out for him but managed to steel myself - I couldn’t break the healing chant and take my hands off my patient, or the parts of the wound I closed up would open again. I could barely hear the spell coming out of my mouth, but felt my voice start shaking. I tried to focus on healing, but couldn’t. My brain was fighting with itself.
Should I assume the guy I’m healing will be alright, go check up on the new arrival and administer a first aid spell? I almost closed up the wound, I think he won’t immediately bleed out anymore, and the guy on the floor is in need of immediate help. Should I ignore them both and heal the other patient, who’s been waiting for his turn on the bed? His wound didn’t seem severe at first glance, but he’s been getting awfully quiet, he might have passed out. Should I leave all of them be, go outside and help with the ship somehow? That way the crew would have more chances to survive on the whole... even if those three might not make it. What the hell do I do?
I felt selfish and useless for having thoughts like those. As a field medic, I was supposed to be able to stay calm under pressure, to know the optimal course of action, to be able to think on my feet, and to not let a single person die on my watch. I had no time for fear and doubt.
...But it was hard not to think of the worst in this atmosphere. The sea in the sickbay window blended with the stormy sky, the waves were throwing our ship left and right, and everything in the room was following suit. Some of my medical supplies had already fallen off the shelves, and the floor was littered with broken glass and various tools. The same would have happened to my patients if I hadn’t strapped them both to their beds with leather belts. My lunch wasn’t keeping still either - I thought I’d gotten over my seasickness a few days ago, but it came back with double the spunk as soon as we entered the storm. It also,really didn’t help the delicate job of magically closing a wound in a man’s stomach.
That snapped me back to reality, and I noticed that I wasn’t pouring as much energy into healing as I should have been, so I cursed myself for getting distracted.
The ship leaned hard left, and the crewmate’s body on the floor was dragged outside with the sound of wood scratching wood, leaving a thin trail of blood where his left eye had been just recently. The reasonable part of me kept saying that with a wound like that he was already beyond saving. The cynical part was relieved that at least I could focus on the other patients. But their voices were drowned out by the fear of once again looking into the lifeless, accusing eyes of a dead man.
The wound finally closed up fully, so I removed the surrounding pus produced by rapid unnatural regeneration and applied a bandage. My heart racing, I darted out of the cabin and got on one knee to check up on the body. His nose was broken from hitting the floor, the bruising having already set in. The wood of the old decommissioned ship we were given splintered easily, so the right half of his face was covered in miniscule pricks and scratches from being dragged on it. The left half was covered in a viscous mix of blood and eye jelly, some of the eye still stuck to the giant splinter lodged in the middle of it. His remaining eye was half open, looking into mine. Surely enough, he had no pulse and was not breathing.
My eye started twitching. I didn’t know if he was the first to die in this storm, but he was the first one I could have saved. I desperately tried to at least remember his name, but failed at that too. He hasn’t visited the sickbay yet, so we had no reason to talk, much like the rest of this crew I had met only a week ago. Though, I doubt anyone on this half-rotten tub wanted to buddy up either way - all of us knew deep down, that this trip would be our last.
I clenched my fists until they hurt. I refused to accept that. There’s no time for regrets and musings, dumbass. Another dying person is waiting for you, along with the rest of the 30 man crew. Get the hell up and do your job.
I shakily got up on my feet and ran back into the cabin to tend to the last one, looking at my watch on the way. 19:27. I’ll write it down later.
The standard procedure for immideate medical care is to start the general anesthetic chant with one hand and check the pulse with the other. Wait, none? Checked the breath... Fuck, FUCK, he isn’t breathing?! I switched the chant to the level 2 general life support spell. Goddammit, when he barged in, shouting about a cut on a leg, I told him to wrap it up and wait for me to finish, I was busy healing the other one! I cut loose his crudely wrapped bandages, already maroon with blood. Wait, what kind of “cut” is this, this is a goddamn gash! It didn’t look nearly as deep at first glance when he came in, he was covering it with his hands! Why didn’t he say anything, his goddamn artery was hit, is he fucking braindead?!
Panicking, I started chanting the life energy transfer spell, both hands aimed at the wound, my voice louder than it had to be. The wound did not react. I gradually increased the energy output. The wound did not react. Years of education told me what that meant, they told me that using my own life force for this was a waste, and I’d just shave off my lifespan for nothing, but I couldn’t stop.
Noooo nononono, this moron can’t be dead!
He just can’t be!
How?!
Yes, I know how, but WHY?!
... My voice died down. The energy transfer stopped and I stepped back. As if by instinct, I looked at my watch.
19:34.
19:27 and 19:34, 17th of Dragon’s Maw, year 124 of the AoP.
I stood there silently, in the sickbay of an old decommissioned trading vessel barely holding together under the tantrum of an uncaring sea, thousands of raindrops dully tapping on the room’s only window. I was looking at a corpse of a person, who was alive mere minutes ago, waiting for me to help him. The corpse’s eyes were closed, but they were looking into mine.
I knew why.
It’s because of me. Because I didn’t examine his wound closer, because I didn’t apply first aid to his wound in time, because I wasn’t paying closer attention to his quieting groans, because I didn’t heal the other one as fast, because I wasn’t as focused on doing that as I should have been, because I ran up to check what I knew to be a corpse instead of tending to the patient I knew for a fact had a chance to survive, because...
I could feel my heart being squeezed. You’re doing it again. You’re making this all about you. You failed to do your job and now you want the whole world to pity you for it. Two people died and YOU’RE the one everyone should pity. Every single excuse you can come up with, at least one of them will absolve you, somehow make it all not your fault, make it all go away. If it’s really your fault, then you have no right to be thinking this. There’s a crowd of people in danger on the upper deck, waiting for you to save them. The only one that can. And you’re standing here, with those teary eyes and this fake guilt you use to pity yourself. Pathetic. If there’s any place where your sorry ass could be of any fucking worth in this world, it’s outside, helping people! Your one purpose in life, the one thing giving your existence meaning, THE ONE THING that gives you more value than that of a corpse, and instead of doing it right now, you’re standing here like a dumbass, hating yourself.
Do not allow yourself to.
Go outside.
GO OUTSIDE, NOW!
I left the sickbay, stepping over the nameless crewmate I failed to save.
